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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Six Best Sloppy Drummers

Of all rock and roll instruments, drums require the most physical ability and coordination. Sometimes musicians get so preoccupied with the technical aspect, they forgot that drums are also these loud things that sound cool when you hit them. Here are the six best sloppy drummers. Let us know your favorites in the comments, but don't be a drag about it.

6. Georgia Hubley (Yo La Tengo)
Georgia Hubley is the dollar-store masking tape that holds Yo La Tengo's freewheeling indie pop tunes together. Her looseness is chameleonic. She can keep a YLT track like "Ohm" from the band's new album Fade from rocking too hard, or she can push her dynamics to propel a song like "The Story Of Yo La Tango" into emotional overload. Her best work, though, is her dainty pseudo-Latin beat on "Last Days Of Disco," in which every kick, every brushed snare has purpose.

5. Ringo Starr (The Beatles)
Ringo gets a lot of crap from musicians for being the least proficient Beatle at his instrument. He is not a great drummer, but he's a great sloppy drummer. It's hard to imagine the band "invading" our country without Ringo's all-smiles backbeats. Some of the most interesting elements of The Beatles, especially in its early stages, come from Starr. His contribution to the song "Help!" is genius; intentional or not, he subversively shifts between a shuffle and straight eighth feel throughout, going especially rigid with his snare fills before the chorus. Ringo isn't Neil Peart, but Neal Peart would have probably played some bullshit on "I Feel Fine."